


how insufficient were all my pretensions

by haemodye



Series: The Importance of Dynamics [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Catholic Steve Rogers, Complete, Developing Relationship, Forced Bonding, Intersex Tony Stark, M/M, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, POV Steve Rogers, POV Tony Stark, Queer Themes, Sad, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unreliable Narrator, but like a really sad wank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haemodye/pseuds/haemodye
Summary: Steve is doing his best to adjust to both the future and having a soulmate that is unlike anyone he's ever met. Tony is doing his best to cope with his deteriorating mental health and adjust to having a soulmate that's still unlearning the gender and sexuality politics of 1940. Bruce just wants his stupid friends to kiss and make up.Sometimes your best just isn't good enough.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: The Importance of Dynamics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058945
Comments: 45
Kudos: 168





	1. There is a stubbornness about me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is the longer fic I've been working on in this 'verse, as promised. I thoooought that this would be the one where we get our happy ending, but it isn't. I'd apologise but I think this is a better story than the one I thought I was going to tell. However, never fear! There will be another installment where it all gets worked out, I promise. The next one, in fact! I already have it plotted out.
> 
> Now, for the usual warnings: organised religion, priests, confession, canon-typical violence, and masturbation. (Yes this is just for Ch 1. It's a roller coaster.) Read below for spoilery elaboration on the organised religion bit.
> 
> [spoilers] Steve is Catholic and has a really good experience with a priest at confession. The priest is helpful and supportive, as it is IRL a progressive NYC church known for being LGBT+ friendly. Can confirm, have been there myself. It's not a 'priest is homophobic and makes him feel like shite' kinda scene. BUT I also know some people have trauma around the church, so I figured I'd put a warning in. Stay safe! [/spoilers]

Steve doesn’t know how long he stares at his computer screen without looking at it, but whatever the answer is, it’s too long.

He’d tried Google, at first, but he’d quickly determined that Google was probably not the place for him to go looking for answers. Questions like: “How do I make my mate happy?” turned up answers that made his blood curdle for how backwards and outdated they were, even by his own standards. Either that, or the articles were all about sex, and, well. The less said about that, the better. He wanted Tony to like him. Sex was a far, far way off from where they were right now. Tony could barely stand to be in the same room with him, let alone…any of that.

He’d tried Googling “why does my mate smell different?” but that just brought up a whole host of strange things about yeast infections and smegma and STIs that made his skin crawl. He’d closed that webpage pretty quickly. When he’d asked “can you be an alpha and an omega at the same time?” he’d gotten some confusing answers about trans-natured people and gender identity, and he didn’t think that what he was looking for at all. Then he’d typed in “people who choose to wear blockers all the time” and stumbled onto some blogs that claimed to be a part of something they called the anti-dynamicist movement. And there, on the internet for everyone to see, on a post with over _ten thousand_ reactions, was a black and white picture of Tony wearing a white t-shirt with a symbol Steve had never seen before on it, framed in the V of an unzipped, oversized black leather jacket. From the viewer’s perspective, it looked like that was the only clothing he was wearing at all.

Tony’s bare legs were spread into a wide isosceles in the photo, his hands deep in the pockets. The black leather was bunched up in front between his open thighs in a swaggering kind of tease, and Steve’s eyes lingered there for far too long, his pulse pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. There was an beguiling gender duality to it. Tony was young and nubile, bare-faced, but still strikingly handsome rather than pretty or soft. The way he held himself was confident, alpha, but the spread legs dusted with dark hair suggested something else. Behind him a long, lonely white beach broken only by tall grass and a short, broken fence made of strips of narrow sun-bleached wood and twisted wires stretched out for miles. There was a tousled, dirty-sexy kind of greaser look about him that Steve recognised from some of the films he’d watched, and it fit who Tony was precisely. Golden hour brought out the shine in his curls, and he looked up at the camera from under thick eyelashes. It was perhaps the most compelling photo Steve had ever seen. Darkly beautiful and wild, Tony looked exactly as he was: undefinable, and defiant, and proud. The sidebar said it all; STARK TRUTH: The Future is Anti-Dynamicism. The person who’d posted it had captioned it: Tony Stark’s historic shoot with Pamela Hanson for _Vanity Fair_ , August 1989.

Guiltily, Steve had printed off a full colour copy of the picture. He’s never needed to paint anything more in his whole life.

Tony, as a public figure, has lots of quotes floating around the internet on any given subject—even some that Steve kind of wishes he didn’t. There’s the video of Tony calling senators assclowns, for one, which seems to have become a kind of reactionary response that’s used as shorthand by average citizens all over the country whenever people are mad at the government. Tony, Steve learns, is what one young woman on tumblr calls “eminently gif-able.” There are all sorts of little clips of him on every single social media platform Steve can access. A gif of Tony dancing on a stage surrounded by beautiful, barely-dressed women with fireworks in the background is used as a celebratory reaction. A gif of Tony whipping off his sunglasses and winking into the camera is used as joking flirtation. A gif of Tony almost falling off of a float at NYC Pride makes Steve blush; Tony’s barely wearing anything, most of it looking like some kind of leather fetish gear, and the text that’s placed over it says TOO GAY TO FUNCTION. In almost all of the gifs, Steve notes, Tony looks particularly attractive. This seems to be a big selling point for Tony; that he’s gorgeous, and people want to sleep with him, even though they don’t know his dynamic. Most people assume he’s an alpha, but there’s a headline from a rag claiming “STARK’S TEEN LOVER TELLS ALL” that conservatives seem to obliquely reference when they are angry about something Tony has done. In it, a man that Steve very much doubts Tony ever touched let alone let knot him claims that Tony’s secretly an omega…well. He calls Tony some names that make Steve have to go down to the gym and take apart a few heavy bags, is all.

Some of it, probably, is jealousy. Steve’s dreamed about Tony scenting him. He’s woken to soiled sheets at the memory of it, something that hasn’t happened since he was a teenage alpha in the year after his presentation. Tony smells like nothing Steve’s ever smelled before: coconut and copper, yes, but also the static feeling of electricity. He imagines licking over Tony’s throat and feeling it in his hair follicles, like putting his tongue in a socket. Lightning. Tony smells like ozone and lightning. Wet earth and wind. A summer storm. It’s delicious. It’s intoxicating. It drives Steve mad. He goes around the tower sometimes burying his nose into places where Tony’s been: the pillows on the couch, and a kitchen towel, and the dirty laundry in the gym. Twice now he’s lost all sense and stolen something to bring back to his room: first, a sweaty towel that Tony must have wiped his neck on after boxing with Happy Hogan; second, a shop rag, marked with the acrid scent of the machine oil and grease that so often lingers under Tony’s fingernails. He’d touched himself, thinking of Tony putting his dirty hands all over him, marking him up. He wants to wear Tony’s blackened handprints under his clothes all day, a mark of ownership. He wants Tony to make a mess of him.

He wants so many stupid, unreasonable things.

“What does it matter what my dynamic is?” Tony had asked in a more recent Vanity Fair video clip. “It’s 20-“ A dip of silence that did little to censor Tony’s profanity. “-10, I can’t believe we’re caving to Tea Party fearmongering.” Tony turned to the camera, then, and pointed at it mock-threateningly. “Don’t you dare edit that out.”

The interviewer’s mouth pinched in a suppressed smile as Tony turned back to her. “But really. Let’s be blunt about it. What does it matter? Does it change my material conditions? Does it make you think differently about the fact that I’m indisputably the smartest man in the world?” He’d winked at the camera, then, like he knew how he sounded and was joking. It’s Tony’s most incredible and infuriating trait—the way it’s so hard to see down to the truth of who he is.

The woman interviewing him was a blonde that Steve didn’t recognise, but Tony had an easy rapport with her that spoke to a casual acquaintance. Tony was just the slightest bit realer with her than he was with the average reporter. It was something Steve had only seen with a handful of journalists, ones that Tony really respected.

“Well,” she said, slowly, in a way that was vaguely flirtatious, “you’ve been voted Sexiest Man Alive twice now: first in 1992 when you became the world’s youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company in history, and then again in 2009, after you’d solidified yourself as Iron-Man and become the world’s first so-called superhero. But there was a lot of controversy the first time around, because that honour had never been given to someone with an undisclosed dynamic before. It had, in fact, been called Sexiest Alpha Alive since the award debuted in 1985. The first and only woman and omega to appear was in 1993, when Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere appeared as a couple. Then it went back to white alpha men. Denzel Washington was the first man of colour in ’96. Then we had Jude Law, the first beta, in ’04. Some people have called you a trailblazer, but there have also been people who’ve claimed that if you’re not an alpha, refusing to disclose your dynamic is cowardice.”

There was something fascinating about the woman on the screen and the way she seemed to know Tony’s tricks. At first, she seemed like she was flirting. It was disarming. But her question turned pointed at the end, her eyes sharpening. Tony, bizarrely, seemed to find this even more charming still, because he laughed out loud.

The video cut to a different angle, and Steve frowned. He wanted to know what Tony had said to that, unedited, but of course that wasn’t how these things worked.

“That exactly proves my point, though, doesn’t it?” Tony asked her. “We have a glaring dynamic hierarchy in most countries, with male alphas at the top, then female alphas, all the way down to male omegas at the very bottom of the list. The domestic violence statistics from RAINN in this country are fantastically depressing, Christine, and we’re supposed to be an example of freedom and justice or whatever to the rest of the world. Anti-dynamicism is about levelling that playing field. The primary way my dynamic has at all affected my life is because certain people feel that they have a right to know intimate details about my body that are, ultimately, none of their business. I created the best WMDs in the world for years, and back then they assumed I was an alpha. Now I create prosthetic limbs and cell phones, and they say I must be an omega because I’m soft-hearted. It’s all sexism. What do my reproductive organs have to do with either of those things? Are alphas not allowed to have a conscience? The omega soldiers protecting U.S. advisor John O. Brennan in Yemen this week are certainly just as capable as their alpha and beta counterparts.”

Tony always speaks so fast. It’s astounding, really. In the five minute clip, Tony manages to deliver an impassioned political diatribe, talk about the importance of clean energy, and allude to his apparently well-earned reputation of sexual prowess all in one go. Watching Tony spar verbally with this woman was like watching a particularly lively tennis match. Steve’s heart was in his throat for the whole clip, and all he kept thinking was: _He’s brilliant and he’s mine. The universe entrusted him to me. He’s amazing. I have to earn his trust back. He’s gorgeous._ Over and over again, like a lovesick fool. He wanted to reach into the screen and touch the crinkles at the corner of Tony’s eyes when he laughed, smooth his dark brow with his thumbs.

Then the interviewer had asked her final question. “A lot of people have wondered, how have you managed to keep your dynamic a secret all this time, when you’ve been so prolific in…sharing your affections?”

The look Tony gave her was scorching and knowing all at once, and in that instant, Steve understood several things: first, that Tony and this woman had slept together before; second, that Tony had expected all of these questions and that was precisely why he’d done the interview; and third, that afterwards, Tony and the interviewer had probably slept together again.

“Easy,” Tony quipped, grinning wolfishly. “Satisfaction, the wonder of modern blockers, and—when all else fails—NDAs and aggressive lawyers. Thanks to the efforts of activists working tirelessly for decades, my right to non-disclosure is now protected by law. God bless America.”

Steve looks down at the matte printed photograph that’s sitting on his desk. He presses one shaking fingertip to the gentle slope of muscle that marks the inside of Tony’s sun-darkened thigh.

_God bless America indeed._

“Tony doesn’t want _anyone_ to know his dynamic,” he says out loud. He tests the idea out, poking at the edges of it in his mind. “Because it’s irrelevant.”

The shape of the idea that’s building inside of him is so large, it’s hard to see the end of it. He tests out the tenets of what Tony and people like him are saying. Tony doesn’t let his dynamic affect him. So, functionally, he doesn’t have one. Tony is…other? He’s just… He’s just a human man, and his dynamic isn’t important because he lives without it. What is it they say? Better living through chemistry? Steve smiles at that, the thought buoying him. In a strange kind of way, he and Tony are matched.

Steve doesn’t have anyone to talk about this with, really. He can’t talk to Bruce about it, or Pepper, or JARVIS. He certainly can’t talk to Natasha; she and Tony have history, and it would be the epitome of foolishness to betray his trust that way.

He thinks about who he might have talked to about this when he was younger. Not his mother, certainly. But maybe…

Steve worries at his lip, then types one last query into the computer. A slow, wry smile breaks over his face.

Well. Nice to see some things don’t change.

Saint Joseph’s looks basically the same as it always has, which is a little disconcerting.

For the most part, Steve’s avoided places that featured heavily in his life from Before. He’d known, in some instinctual way, that he wasn’t quite ready. It was why SHIELD had put him up in a little cabin in the woods for several months. Everything in the new world is bright and fast and loud. Even now, he dreads leaving the tower, even when it’s to help people in need. The city in recovery is twice as overwhelming; jackhammers, and cranes, and thousands of memorials full of flowers and candles and photos of the dead everywhere he looks. It’s enough to make him want to crawl back into the woods and stay there until the ringing in his head is quieted once more by the crickets and the night owls—the sound of the wind through the trees.

He’s dressed as inconspicuously as he could manage, so as to look least like himself. He’s got a baseball cap on, one of Tony’s stolen t-shirts, a hoodie and sunglasses and jeans. He does his best to avoid anyone’s eye, even as he passes tributes with his shield on them and murals with his face. When he gets to the white-pillared building he stops and looks up at it: the tall columns still standing like sentinels, holding up the peaked roof with its little cross. It’s beautiful. It’s still here.

He ducks his head and goes inside.

There’s no one waiting for confession, which is a miracle, but then again it’s a Wednesday. Times have changed. There’s probably fewer devout Catholics around now than there were, not that Steve would really know. There are little things he’s forgotten about churches. How quiet they are, for one, in a singular kind of way. The city is so loud, but in here, it’s a clean white resonant chamber. Like standing inside a shell at the beach: that quiet rush of air that doesn’t sound quite like anything else, stretched out and made loud. The quiet susurrus of his own breathing reflected back at him by polished stone. The soft squeak of his trainers on the gleaming floors. Steve dips his fingers in the basin and crosses himself, muttering a little prayer and bowing to the cross. Then he turns and ducks into the confessional booth, pulling the door closed behind himself.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been, uh.” Steve stops, huffing a self-deprecating laugh. Right. “It’s been a really, really long time since my last confession.”

There’s an awkward silence as the priest waits for Steve to confess his sins, but Steve doesn’t really know where to begin. He opens his mouth, but he can’t stop thinking of Tony falling from the portal, dead weight. He doesn’t know how to say _I almost killed my soulmate_ without the priest thinking he’s a monster.

“Well,” the priest says philosophically, when Steve has been silent for longer than a minute, “confession is one of those things that’s always better late than never.”

A startled laugh flies from Steve’s mouth, too loud. It bursts out into the larger chamber of the church, echoing strangely when the sound has already fallen flat within the tiny wooden box they share. Steve flushes, embarrassed.

“That’s better,” the priest says cheerfully. “It seems like you’re struggling with something, son.”

Steve lets out a shaky breath. “I...I met my soulmate recently.”

“Congratulations!” The priest’s words are filled with unmitigated delight. “My the Lord bless your bond and grant you happiness in the years to come.”

“Thank you, father.”

The priest hums. “I’m guessing you didn’t come to confession for congratulations.”

“No, father.”

“You’re a polite young man. You come from a traditional Catholic background?”

“Yes, Father.”

“And your soulmate?”

Steve can’t help but laugh again at the idea of Tony attending mass. “Not at all, father.”

“And this troubles you?”

“No, no, it’s...” Steve takes in a breath. “Where I grew up, it was, uh. Real traditional, let’s say. My soulmate and I don’t-... I know that our soulmates are supposed to be chosen by God, but I. He’s, uh, he’s quite liberal. So I messed up, when I met him. I did some things that I didn’t realise were hurtful to him. Because of my upbringing. And now no matter what I do, I feel like I do it wrong. I’m always upsetting him. And I don’t mean to! That’s the last thing I want to do, but I just can’t seem to get anything right. And I-“ Steve swallows, rallies his courage. “I ache for him. I...that’s probably been my biggest sin all year. I...my job requires me to hurt people. I’m not- I mean, I work for…I’m a soldier. I kill people, even, sometimes, although of course I try not to, but. But the...” Steve blushes. “Lust. Definitely, definitely lust. More times than I can count or quantify.”

The silence from the priest gains a ponderous quality. “You don’t get along?”

“That’s not...” Steve huffs, frustrated. He’s not explaining this right. He thinks of that moment on the balcony, where Tony put his wrists behind Steve’s ears and he felt like he could breathe for the first time he woke up from the ice. He thinks about Tony’s scent going sour and pained and not understanding what he’d done to cause it. “I try. And he tries too, I know he does. It’s just, no matter how hard we try we can’t get it right.”

“Well.” The priest hums. “First off, lusting after your soulmate is quite natural, and even mostly permissible in scripture, so I think we can let that one slide.”

Steve frowns. “But father-“

“As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste,” the priest intones, and Steve’s mouth snaps shut. It’s a holy verse, although it’s no verse Steve knows. “Have you read the Song of Songs, son?”

“I have not, father. I went to Latin mass as a kid.”

“Well, there’s your penance, then. Read the whole thing through, in English, and see how you feel about it afterwards.”

Steve frowns. “That’s it?” he asks, because that seems awfully easy, but the priest just goes on talking.

“Now murder is of course a cardinal sin, so even if it’s part of your job as a soldier, I think we’ll set you to a corporal work of mercy for every life you’ve taken since your last confession. At least one hour.”

Steve swallows. “I’m ashamed to say I don’t know how many lives that would be, father. But I have performed many acts of charity to restore the city in the wake of the alien invasion, and I will continue to do so until she is made whole again.”

The priest sighs. “Lord, what evils have been wrought in Your name,” he murmurs. “Scatter the nations who delight in war.”

Steve doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“Let us be honest, hmm son? You came here for a purpose.”

“Yes, father.”

“The issue I think you’re having is that you feel you haven’t done right by your soulmate. And that’s quite an egregious sin. But let me ask you this: have you talked to him? Have you told him how you feel?”

Steve looks down at his hands folded in his lap. “It’s not so easy, father.” He knows he sounds like he’s making excuses, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t know what else to do. “I haven’t...he hasn’t expressed wanting a claim. We don’t even touch each other. It’s...” Steve thinks about the absolute drugging haze that even the barest touch from Tony ignites in him. The way his eyes light up when he’s working on something and makes a break through. The way his body sways to the music when he’s in a groove and has forgotten Steve is in the room. He feels a little like he might cry. “All I want is to be good to him, but I don’t know how.”

“Well you’d best ask him, then,” the priest says. “And if you don’t get an answer that you can work with, ask again until you do. That’s the only way to make anyone happy, but especially your soulmate. You have to talk to him, find out what he needs. Maybe he’s quite modern and liberal and he doesn’t want to be bonded. You’ll have to accept that, and that might be hard for you. But it’s your duty to love and support your soulmate. That is the divine commandment of our Lord. It’s your task to find out how best to go about doing that.”

“Is that my penance, father?” Steve asks. This priest doesn’t seem quite like the ones he’s used to, but he finds that he likes his way of doing things much better.

“If you wish to make your soulmate happy, you must remember your First Corinthians. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonour others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

“I think you must love your soulmate very much, to have come here and sought penance for hurting his heart.”

Steve swallows. His eyes feet hot and swollen with unshed tears. He’s never heard the scripture like this; plain and easy, coming into him like a song. It’s beautiful.

When Steve was a child, church was always sacred. Remote. Clean. It was a place to go to get answers and be told how the world was in absolutes. Wisdom in ancient tongues. There was a part of him, he realised now, that had come here to try to understand how much things had changed to let a man as brilliant and defiant as Tony shine as brightly as he does. The Catholic church is a weathervane of what was acceptable amongst good but mostly socially conservative people. He thinks he’s beginning to see the truth of what Bruce had been trying to tell him before: the future is different, true, and sometimes not being guided by the easy markers of pheromone and instinct is hard. But it's…freeing, too. That was what Bruce had meant, when he’d talked about the advent of omega rights. When Tony talked about it not mattering. It's about being free to love whoever they want, _do_ whatever they want.

He thinks of Peggy, the riddle of her: strong alpha confidence stuffed into an omega’s soft, curved body. He remembers the horrific things the men used to say about her, the way it would make his fists clench so hard his nails cut into his palms. He thinks about Gilmore Hodge muttering: “Of course Rogers is panting after her—he’s basically an O, ‘course he wants a proper Bitch. He’s probably hoping Carter’s hiding a knot under her skirt.” He thinks of launching himself forward and punching the bastard so hard he fell back. The other men had crawled over each other to pull them apart, his knuckles split open and a black ring around his eye, Hodge’s nose crooked and gushing blood into his mouth. He thinks of how angry Peggy had been after: “I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me, Rogers.” She hadn’t spoken to him for a whole week.

He thinks that it’s likely Peggy would have worn blockers all the time if she could have, too.

Peggy hadn’t wanted anyone to take care of her, but that isn’t the kind of person Tony is at all. He’s independent, sure, but also…neglected, in some kind of essential way. He needs care, in a way that Peggy hadn’t ever needed care. Steve has thought about it a lot—what is it that makes them perfect for each other? Tony is strong, in exactly the ways that Steve loves. He’s brilliant, and beautiful, and so clever. He’s hurt, and deserves kindness. He’s had so little kindness in his life. If love is patience, then Steve can be patient for Tony. He’d wait for another hundred years, it if meant Tony would be waiting for him with that small, vulnerable smile that Steve has only been graced with a handful of times but strives desperately for. He’d sink another plane, fight another war. He’d kill another hundred men. The way Steve feels about Tony is too big. It feels biblical. It feels like coming apart at the seams. And if that isn’t love, what is?

“I do,” Steve says, and it’s true. “It…there’s so much more to learn about him, I know that. But I do.” He laughs a little, brokenly. “Thank you, father.”

The priest huffs a sigh. “Recriminations do nothing but harm, my child. Forgive yourself your trespasses, as the Lord does. Give yourself permission to do what it is that you wish to do: love your soulmate.

“Now, let us pray.”

Steve bows his head over his folded hands. A fat teardrop lands on his knitted fingers, but that’s alright. For the first time since he was a child, he actually feels like he’s been washed clean through confession.

“Lord, I thank you for your grace and compassion and love. I pray that your blessings flow through me, that I might serve as a vessel for your will. Lord, I ask forgiveness for my sins, and the strength to do what is asked of me. I swear to abide by my penances, and to avoid temptation, and to right the wrongs I have done, and that I know I shall do, for as you know I am an imperfect man who only seeks to do the right thing. Amen.”

There’s a small, companionable silence in the confession booth. Steve wipes at his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. He lets the atmosphere of the church wash over him: the unique, echoing silence, and the faintest scent of the thurible’s swaying left from morning mass, and the smooth texture of the wood against his arm where he’s pressed against the booth.

“Feel better?” the priest asks, and Steve smiles.

“I do,” he says truthfully. “Thank you so much, father.”

“Anytime,” the priest says, a smile audible in his voice. “Don’t wait so long for confession next time. Come back and tell me how it goes, hm? I’m rooting for you.”

“I will,” he promises.

Steve steps out into the bright, loud world, and it’s like a weight has been pulled from his shoulders. He sucks in a deep breath, and it lightens him. He feels like he could float into the sky. He feels like nothing bad can touch him.

He’s going to go back to the tower and he’s going to talk to Tony. He’s going to be what Tony needs him to be. He’s going to figure this out.

Steve is practically vibrating when he gets back to the tower, but as twitterpatted as he is, he’s still a tactician. He knows he’s too keyed up to talk to Tony like a normal person. He’s just as likely to barge into the workshop and just start babbling embarrassing things and quoting scripture at him, which seems more likely to turn Tony off than anything. Instead, he dips quickly into his room to change and then heads back down to the gym. It’s best if he works out some of this tension that’s bubbling up inside of him like light. He feels like he’s glowing from the inside.

He hops up and down a little in the elevator, shaking his arms out. But when the doors open, a familiar low laugh curls into him like caramel. In his heightened state, Tony’s laughter is like a straight shot to his core. He can feel himself blushing, but he can’t stop and turn back.

“Low blow, J,” Tony says, and Steve freezes. Or maybe he should turn back. “Steve, that you?”

“Uh,” Steve says. He shuffles in place, heart pounding. He isn’t ready to see Tony right now. He’s too keyed up. He feels like he’s crawling out of his skin.

“Just the man I was looking for,” Tony’s saying, and Steve can only think that can’t be right. Tony never seeks him out. “Wanna spar? Happy took off with Pepper.”

Steve can’t bring himself to say anything in return. This whole thing feels very surreal, and the idea of touching Tony’s skin when he’s this keyed up seems…dangerous. It seems like a bad, completely inadvisable idea.

“Steve?” there’s the tell-tale pad of footsteps across the mats, then the transition of Tony’s feet stepping onto the rubber floors. Tony’s head appears around the open doorway to the gym. “What are you doing?”

Steve nearly swallows his tongue. Tony’s…

“Shirt,” he murmurs, dazedly. Or, rather, a lack of one. Tony’s completely shirtless, sweat slowly trickling down his abdominal muscles in mouth-watering streams. _Oh, God, forgive me._

Tony’s expression shifts, undecipherable for a breath, before his brows furrow. His mouth quirks, dry as bone, and Steve realises he’s been standing in the elevator gaping at Tony’s abs for a solid ten seconds. Like a brute. Like he’s twelve and stupid with lust because he’s just discovered what his knot is for.

Steve realises, with a kind of distant mortification, that he’s about to be visibly hard in his sweatpants.

“Shit,” he says. He turns around and clamps a hand over his eyes. “I mean-I’m sorry-”

“It’s my scent, isn’t it?” Tony asks, and Steve lets out the tiniest groan because he _hadn’t_ noticed Tony’s scent yet. He’d been too preoccupied, and now it’s all he can focus on. Tony smells incredible—like a mistral crossing the Rhône before a storm. He smells like lightning, and coconut, and warm ocean-y sweat. Steve takes a slow, deep breath and his knees almost go out from under him. He reaches a blind hand out for the elevator railing, does his best to lean against it casually. He is under no illusions that he succeeds.

“Tony,” he rasps, head spinning. What is _happening_ to him? “God, I’m sorry.”

“Steve,” Tony says, much closer now, and Steve sucks in a shaky breath though his mouth. It doesn’t help at all. Tony’s sweat is evaporating into the air, a fine mist of pheromones coating Steve’s tongue like candy. He feels like he’s drowning. He can’t breathe. “Hey…”

“I- I can’t,” Steve grits out. He pulls his hand away from his face and turns around, reaching for the button to his floor. Tony’s standing just outside the elevator doors, expression somewhere between shock and bewilderment. “I’m so sorry, Tony, I’ll-later.”

“Steve-” Tony says, but Steve can’t wait. He watches the elevator doors close on Tony’s furrowed brows, the sweet bow of his mouth under his moustache, his beautiful doe-brown eyes.

 _Twitterpated_ , he thinks again, remembering Bambi’s big brown eyes. _God, he’s gorgeous._

Steve strips out of his clothes as soon as he’s past his own door, heading straight for the shower. He’s barely got a hand around himself before he’s knotting his own hand, forehead pressed to the cold white tile, chest heaving. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth for the last of Tony’s pheromones left there, licks his teeth and moans. Fuck. _Fuck_.

“Tony,” he whines, and the water isn’t even the right temperature but he can’t manage to change it. He thinks of the flex of Tony’s abdominals under a sheen of sweat, remembers the feeling of Tony’s wrists pressed to his neck, his pulse strong under Steve’s fingers, and the second wave of his orgasm hits him so hard he has to sit down on the bench in the shower. He’s never used it the whole time he’s lived in this apartment, but it sure is coming in handy now. “Holy Christ.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever come this hard in his life.

At first, Steve tried not to think of Tony. It seemed wrong, to think of him like that when Tony couldn’t stand to touch him. But after Tony scented him two weeks ago, Steve’s lost all sense of control. Tony’s smug little smile as he’d offered his wrist haunts Steve’s every waking moment. Tony _liked_ that Steve liked his scent. Whatever else Tony feels for him, Steve could tell that much. And that’s a kind of permission on its own, isn’t it? So fine, Tony had gotten overwhelmed and freaked out after, but Steve isn’t going to push. He understands that Tony isn’t ready. But it seemed like it was ok, after that, to think about it in his own mind. It seems like Tony might…want him, eventually. Maybe. Or at least, that some part of him enjoyed being able to affect Steve like that.

And Gods, what an effect it is.

By the time Steve staggers out of the bathroom and falls into bed, he’s ready to change his name and move to another state. Tony _hates_ alphas who can’t control themselves more than anything else. He’d made that abundantly clear. And Steve had just…made a complete and total fool of himself in front of Tony. God, he’s always been _so stupid_ around anyone he likes. Erskine’s genius could give him muscles that can stop a moving vehicle, but it couldn’t give him any kind of charm to speak of. He’s got eidetic memory and he still hasn’t learned how to talk to a handsome fella like a normal human being. Buck would call him tragic if he could see him now, and he’d be right. Steve is a tragedy. He’s a travesty.

“I’m such a fathead,” he groans into his bedspread.

He has no idea how he’s going to face Tony after that spectacle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This series finally got steamy! Briefly. Solo. Look, whatever, it's a slow burn okay? T___T;
> 
> Let me know your thoughts! As always, comments are the best thing to motivate me. <3


	2. a rational creature, speaking the truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time, it's someone else's job to fuck up!
> 
> CW: severe panic attack, disassociation, some p heavy arguing, emotional manipulation (but not from who you think hahaha...ha...)
> 
> Stay safe and lmk if there's anything I missed.

Tony’s genuinely astonished when Steve shows up in the workshop a few hours after he’d rabbited.

Tony’s showered and re-applied his blockers, of course, but he’s sure Steve can smell him. He’d forgotten what it was like to have an effect on someone that way. It’s been so long since he lived with someone new; his inner circle is mostly used to his scent by now. He’d thought Steve was used to him, too, but he supposes that isn’t necessarily fair. His scent is a hundred times more potent right now. And in Steve’s mind, he keeps reminding himself, they’re already Bonded. Of course Tony’s pheromones hit him like a brick.

Steve stands awkwardly by Tony’s workbench, holding a tray of food. It looks like another stew, but Tony isn’t complaining. He should have eaten after his workout, but he’d been too keyed up remembering the flush high on Steve’s cheeks as the elevator doors closed. Steve’s scent—hot leather and citrusy clove—had hit him like a hammer as Steve’s arousal spiked. The pheromone compatibility of bonded pairs is no joke. Tony wanted to lick him all over.

He still wants to lick him all over.

“I want to apologise,” Steve begins, and Tony sighs and waves a hand at him.

“It’s ok, Cap-”

“It isn’t,” Steve says stubbornly. “I lost control.”

Tony sighs. “Steve. It’s _okay_. Really.”

Steve studies him. He glances meaningfully at the cluttered worktop, and Tony obligingly shoves some stuff over to make room for the tray. Steve puts it down and goes to fetch another stool, and Tony looks down at the spread. Warm thick-cut bread, stew, a pepper grinder, a few paper-thin slices of cheese. It’s…sweet, which Tony is learning is very much who Steve tries to be. When he isn’t putting his foot in his mouth, at least. He reaches out and gently brushes his fingers along one of the two napkins. He doesn’t even know where Steve found these in the tower.

Steve’s looking at him with a kind of vulnerable expression when he glances up, and Tony can’t help but look away. Embarrassment curls into his stomach, heats his cheeks. He’s glad he doesn’t blush like Steve does.

“Can we…talk?”

Tony nods.

They’ve never really done this before. Eaten together, knees almost touching. Haltingly, Steve tells him a little about his morning trip to a church he’d been to with his mom as a kid. His expression lights up as he speaks, in an endearing sort of way. Tony’s not religious, but Steve’s happiness is like sunlight. It leaves him feeling warm and strangely indolent.

“I just…it was really nice,” Steve finishes, awkwardly, and Tony nods encouragingly at him.

“I’m glad,” he tells him, and Steve smiles at him. It’s brilliant. “I went to church a few times as a kid, mostly for holidays. Easter, Christmas. My mother always liked St. Vincent. Beautiful, stately, but not as crowded as some of the other places.”

“Was she Catholic?”

Tony shrugs, pulling the crust off of a piece of bread and dipping it in what’s left of his stew. “Sort of? Howard was an atheist. Or agnostic, maybe, I dunno. We never talked about it. I know my mom was raised proper Roman Catholic, though. I mean, she was real Italian. But she was a practical woman, not really very devout. Mostly I think her faith was linked to her charity work. The Maria Stark Foundation was everything to her.”

“She sounds like a lovely woman.”

“She had her moments,” Tony says. He glances up at Steve, a small smile quirking his mouth. “She was a lot younger than him, y’know? He needed an heir to the Stark empire. She wanted social mobility. It was an old fashioned kind of marriage.”

Steve sighs. He looks into his bowl, scraping the last bits of the potatoes up with his spoon. “I can’t help but feel kind of responsible for Howard being such a jerk. I know you’re gonna tell me it’s not my fault, but. I just think I should say so.”

“Why?” Tony asks, baffled.

“Well, because-” Steve sucks in a breath. He puts his spoon his mouth, and for a moment, they both eat in silence while he does his best to get his thoughts together. He gets like this sometimes, Tony’s noticed. Sometimes Steve needs to work something out in his brain before he comes out with something whole and true. It’s the opposite of Tony, who mostly speaks until he figures out what he’s trying to say. Steve would rather clam up and then say it all once, perfectly. He only really gets into trouble when he rushes himself.

“I’ve been…reading,” he says, and Tony raises his eyebrows. “About omega rights, and the anti-dynamic movement.”

 _Oh._ Tony blinks. “Oh.”

“And, it’s true, what they say—alphas talk, right? Howard was…he was always saying stuff I didn’t agree with. About O’s, like we called 'em back then. About lady omegas, specifically, but sometimes beta ladies, too. And we all just laughed about it, because it was Howard. He was harmless, right?” Steve looks up, then, and his blue eyes are fierce. They pin Tony to his seat. “But it isn’t _really_ harmless at all, isn’t that the real truth? It hurts people, when alphas talk like that. It hurt _you_. And your ma. And I never said anything to him, because he was my friend. I knew it was wrong, and I let him go on like that. So aren’t I responsible for that?”

Tony knows he’s gaping like a fish, but he can’t manage to do anything else. He has no idea what to say.

“What have you been reading?” he asks, faintly.

Steve shrugs, glancing back into his now empty bowl. “Just normal people writing about their own experiences—omegas, and, uh. Trans-natured people? Blogs, I think they’re called? There’s this website where people talk about this stuff a lot, called Tumblr-”

“Oh my god,” Tony says, appalled, and Steve flinches.

“Is that- is that wrong?”

“No, no,” Tony says, but there’s something happening inside of him. Something bubbling up in his chest. _Hysteria_ , he thinks distantly, as a bark of laughter makes its way out of his throat. _I’m shocked._ Is that the word? He can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Tony can’t stop laughing, now that he’s started. Steve looks bewildered, and he knows he’s being rude, but Tony can’t help it. He can’t stop.

“What is it?” Steve asks, sounding resigned. “What did I say?”

“No,” Tony says again, because he’s doing this all wrong. He tries to get a hold of his breath. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry. I just-” He’s tearing up now, and he doesn’t know if it’s from the laughter or something else. “We _radicalised_ you. You moved in with two ultra-liberal, anti-dynamic, intersex scientists, and we radicalised you! Howard would skin me alive if he could hear this, I can’t believe-”

“There isn’t a single person in this tower that would let that happen, including you,” Steve says sternly, and Tony can’t help but laugh again.

“Oh my god, you’re _adorable_ ,” he says, delighted. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Steve says wryly, but the thing is, Tony _isn’t_.

“I’m not,” he promises. He wipes at his eyes with his thumb, then reaches out to touch Steve’s hand. Steve sucks in a breath, then immediately turns his wrist over. He clutches Tony’s hand like he’s going to fly away. “I know I’m- I mean, I know this isn’t what you wanted. But you’re actually the real fucking deal, aren’t you?”

“I don’t understand,” Steve says, but he's smiling a little. He squeezes Tony's hand.

“You’re…all my life, I heard all these stories about you. The man you were, and the man I should try to be. And I thought it was bullshit. Nostalgia, rose-tinted glasses, whatever. And then when I met you, I mean. Hey, fault’s mutual, but you were kind of an asshole, which is because you were going through some shit so, whatever. I could have been less…me. Maybe.” Steve's mouth twists into a moue. He shakes his head. “But you’re actually just a really awkward sweetheart, aren’t you? You’ve got a soft, gooey centre under all that muscle.”

“Gooey?” Steve asks, a shy smile slowly breaking across his full mouth.

“Gooey,” Tony tells him. He squeezes Steve’s fingers, and Steve blushes prettily. He swallows, brushing his thumb over Tony’s knuckles.

“I don’t want you to be less you,” he murmurs.

Tony takes a slow breath. Okay, that’s good, right? This is good. This all feels…really good. He licks his lips. “What do you want?”

Steve shrugs, but his face is on fire. “I just…I want to be a good soulmate, but I don’t know how.”

Tony stills. He does his best not to sigh. The old ache starts up in his chest again.

“Right,” he says. “Of course.”

Tony huffs a laugh, and pulls his hand out of Steve’s warm, beautiful fingers. There are no calluses, probably because of the serum. He’s got artist hands: long, tapered fingers with pretty pink nails. They’re soft. Gentle.

“Soulmates,” Tony repeats.

Steve’s open hand flexes, once, before he pulls it back into his lap. “Yes,” he says.

“You’re not obligated, you know,” Tony says, although it sounds distant to his own ears. He takes a slow breath. He’s so tired of this. “You can do whatever you want, Steve.”

“I just told you what I want,” Steve says. His voice is plaintive, helpless, and Tony closes his eyes. “You’re upset.”

“Steve,” Tony says, shaking his head, but that only seems to rile Steve up more.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Why are you _lying_?” Steve snarls. He jerks back, then, flinching. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s okay,” Tony tells him, but Steve isn’t listening. He’s packing their dishes back onto the tray, tension tight in his shoulders. “Steve, it’s okay.”

Steve shakes his head. “I’ll clean up.” He swallows again, blinking quickly. His scent turns sharp when he’s angry like this—almost spicy. It’s still unbearably appealing. “I’ll go-”

“You don’t have to go-”

“I should go.”

Tony swallows. Right. Okay. “Wait, just, one sec.”

Steve stills, fingers curled so carefully around the edges of the tray. He's already halfway to the door. Tony doesn’t even know where he got a serving tray from. He’s not looking at Tony at all.

“My, uh. You probably noticed my… My heat’s coming up.” Tony clears his throat. “This week, probably.” Or in the next 72 hours. Whatever.

Steve is statue-still. He’s staring down into the empty soup bowls like they’ll save his life. “Your…heat,” he repeats curtly.

“Yeah,” Tony says. He’s not really sure what to say next. Steve clearly likes how he smells. They’re incredibly biologically compatible. He’d thought that this part would be easy, at the very least. “So. What are you…” He falters, heart in his throat. Steve wants him sexually, at the very least. That…was obviously true. He’d _smelled_ it earlier.

“I can take a mission,” Steve says gruffly, and Tony’s mouth opens, but no words come out.

 _What?_ He’s genuinely bewildered. He waits for Steve to explain, but no explanation follows. “What?”

“I’ll take a mission,” Steve says. “Go down to D.C., help Romanov with the STRIKE team or something.” His jaw is tight as a steel trap.

Tony’s mouth closes. A terrifying, twisting pain is snarling up in his throat. He does his best to clamp down on the sob that wants to break out of his chest.

“Okay,” he manages. It’s quiet, almost a whisper, but he knows Steve can hear it. He swallows. He turns back to his work, blindly. He can barely see the tools in front of him. He’s in no fit state to solder. “Cool. Good talk.”

Steve nods stiffly. “If that’s all, I’m…I’m going to the gym.”

Tony waves a hand at him. He waits for Steve to leave, for the tell-tale hiss of the workshop door closing behind him.

As soon as he’s gone, pain curls into Tony’s chest like a knife. Has to take shallow breaths. It hurts. It hurts so fucking badly.

“Fuck, J, what’s happening?”

“I believe you’re experiencing angina due to Bond Stress. It's often called Broken Heart Syndrome, although I'm sure you find that term unbearably poetic. Would you like me to call Dr. Banner?”

“No, no, don’t.” Tony gasps out. He presses a shaky hand to the arc reactor, squeezes his eyes shut. “ _Fuck_. Is this normal?”

“Bond Stress-induced cardiomyopathy can be fatal over time, sir. I strongly recommend you speak to someone.”

“And say what?” Tony snaps. “That my hot, young, peak-of-human-perfection soulmate doesn’t want to fuck me? What are they gonna do about it? No one can make Steve want me. Even if they could, I wouldn’t…” His voice breaks a little, in the middle of the word. “I thought…I don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand it either,” JARVIS admits. “He exhibits all the markers of arousal. He is undeniably attracted to you, sir.”

“Things were going well,” Tony says. He presses his forehead to the worktop, letting the cold seep into his skin. His chest aches. His throat feels like it’s on fire. “I thought…for a moment, I thought, earlier…”

“You thought he might kiss you.”

“Yes.”

“I thought so too.”

Tony lets out a helpless laugh. “Coding bias—the AI I programmed is just as bad at reading social cues as I am.”

“I’m much better at reading social cues than you,” JARVIS says, all charming false outrage, and Tony laughs and closes his eyes. “If I might suggest a radically different course of behaviour…”

“Spare me.”

“You could ask Captain Rogers why he has chosen to remove himself from the situation, instead of speculating.”

“You want me to torture myself more, you mean. What the hell does it matter? He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t have to tell me why.” Tony squeezes his eyes shut as another wave of pain overtakes him. He grits his teeth through the pain. “He’s not obligated.”

“I would hypothesize that he does want you, and there is some internal reasoning that prevents him from acting on his desires.”

“How is that different than what I just said?”

“Perhaps he’s afraid of hurting you with his enhanced strength. Perhaps he’s a traditionalist, and only wants to have sex after bonding. Perhaps he's inexperienced and is worried about his performance with an experienced lover such as yourself. We can’t know unless you ask him.”

Tony groans. “I hate when you have a point.”

“You love it when I best you in an argument. You still take it as a sign of your own intelligence.”

Tony smiles into the space between his folded arm and the table.

“Sir.”

Tony sighs. He closes his eyes. “Maybe he’s not ready,” he says.

“That’s also possible.”

Tony sighs. He straightens up, wiping a hand over his face. “Did you put the time in so Pepper knows?”

“Of course. Shall I make the usual arrangements?”

Tony opens his mouth to say yes, then closes it again. He remembers the guilt that swallowed him when he’d come home from his night out with Lacey and Michelle.

“No,” he says, quietly. “But make the usual inquiries, see if anyone really needs the money. Ask Denham first. His partner needed top surgery last time I saw him, and he’ll give you a straight answer about how everyone’s doing.”

“And if they do?”

Tony hums. “Book it and then cancel within 24 hours. Not like I haven’t had to do that for work before.”

“How kind of you, sir.”

“We can afford it,” Tony says, embarrassed. “Denham’s a sweetie.”

“Much like Captain Rogers.”

“Traitor.”

JARVIS’ silence is smug.

* * *

Tony’s heat lasts four whole days. It’s his longest, most miserable heat since childhood.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he’d asked JARVIS on the third day, when it seemed like it might go on for a week.

“You’ve had a heat partner for every single one of your heats since I was created.”

“That’s not true,” Tony panted. He was lying on his back, exhausted. The ache in his belly was nearly unbearable, but he didn’t quite have the strength to do anything but lie there with the knotting dildo inside of him and pray for relief. “What about that time in Dubai?”

“Miss Potts was able to find a sex worker for the last day of your heat because you were so miserable.” The implications of Tony’s current condition are left unsaid. “She bribed the hotel staff.”

Tony has only the vaguest recollection of this.

“What about that time I cancelled on Jamie last minute on Christmas?”

“You took Keisha, an omega woman from web development, back to the Malibu house after handling the imminent crisis with the StarkPhone 7. She spent the first day of your heat with you. In July of the following year she bonded to an alpha and transferred to the Chicago office.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m certain her transfer had nothing to do with you, sir.”

“That’s…have I really?”

“I can list every sexual partner you have ever had in order from my creation ‘til now if that will assuage your doubts,” JARVIS told him dryly.

“Hard pass, what is this, my internet search history? Why do you even store that data?”

“In case someone decides to speak to the press, of course.”

Tony hadn’t had anything to say to that.

The thing is, Tony’s heats are usually quite mild, likely as a result of his hormone imbalance. He’s not quite an omega, certainly not an alpha. He’s intersex, and so his heats have always been weak. It’s a blessing, really. Tony has always pitied the omegas who were stuck in bed for a week, unable to work. But for the past few days, all he’d be able to think about was how nice it would have been to spend the week being waited on hand and foot by a certain broad-shouldered, blue-eyed alpha with soft hands.

Steve had left the tower, though, just as he’d promised. He’d gone down to D.C. to run an op with the STRIKE team. Apparently they’re down a man, Barton having taken off time to recover from the trauma of his brain being scrambled like an egg by Loki. Tony kind of envies him. The rational part of mind knows that sitting on a beach somewhere and not doing anything is the best way to send himself into a major depressive episode, but right now, all Tony wants to do is lie down and never get up again. Every part of him hurts, and not in a good way. He feels like he’s been run over by a truck.

“Here,” Bruce says, “take off your shirt.”

“What?” Tony slurs.

He’s slumped over the island in the kitchen, the cold marble doing wonders for his pounding headache. He’d been starving and too exhausted to figure out what to feed himself, and had mostly been hoping that stumbling zombie-like into a place with other humans might gain him a pre-made snack. Bruce, bless him, had taken one look at Tony and cooked him a carb-loaded breakfast that kind of made Tony feel like he was a pregnant invalid. But in a good way, maybe. He feels cared for.

“Take off your shirt.” Bruce tugs gently on Tony’s hem for emphasis, and Tony rises off the table just enough to let Bruce peel his ratty Soundgarden t-shirt off of him and toss it to the side. “Where’s it hurt most? Besides your lower back.”

“Neck,” Tony mutters.

There’s a click behind him, and then Bruce’s wet hands are braced across his lower back. His thumbs dig into the dip at the base of Tony’s spine.

“Oh my _God_ ,” he groans. “Marry me.”

“Nope,” Bruce says pleasantly. “I couldn’t handle the super soldier puppy dog eyes.”

“Fuck him,” Tony mutters. He hisses as Bruce’s fingers hit a particularly bad knot. “Asshole abandoned me in my time of need.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason for leaving, Tony.”

“Tell that to my fucking hypothalamus.”

Bruce tuts at him. He works his way up Tony’s spine, slowly, digging his big, calloused hands into Tony’s latissimus dorsi like a pro.

“I love you,” Tony tells him, when he reaches Tony’s trapeziuses.

“I know.”

“Ok, first of all, you are _definitely_ Chewie in this relationship. I’m Han.” Tony’s back is tingling, a slow spread of gentle pins and needles. All the tension in him is melting away. “Also, what the fuck? Did you give me muscle relaxants?”

“It’s just a little bit of CBD and THC oil. 50:1.”

“Illegal druuuugs,” Tony sings at him, and Bruce snorts.

“It’s been legalised in Colorado,” Bruce says primly.

“No it _will_ be, like, two months from now. Besides, when would you have had time to go to Colorado?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Tony laughs. “Okay, Cheech. I know you cooked this up.”

“Specious accusations,” Bruce says mildly. He digs his thumbs into Tony’s spine with particular viciousness, and Tony lets out a low, laughing groan.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he moans. “Where the fuck did you learn this?”

“You curse a lot when you’re tired. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be any filter to lose, but I guess I was wrong.” He laughs when Tony tries half-heartedly to take a swat at him and fails. “Here, actually. Chinatown. I took an herbalism class from a TCM practitioner and she was also a skilled acupressure massage therapist. Brilliant woman. I can give you her number, if you want the real thing. She works at Kamwo.”

“Hell yes,” Tony says. “J, remind me. This is witchcraft.”

“Or thousands of years old indigenous medicine, but ok.”

“Was that a racism?”

“Little bit.”

“Oops.”

Bruce laughs. “I thought you got really into traditional medicine when you were dealing with the palladium problem.”

“I did, sort of,” Tony admits. “But I was looking for something very specific. Anything that was supposed to help with heavy metal poisoning. Most of that was what to ingest. I drank a lot of algae.”

“Hence the smoothies.”

“Hence the smoothies,” Tony agrees. “Which, hey, my bloodwork is way better than it was pre-smoothies, so I think I should get some credit for self-care or whatever the hell Pepper is always going on about.”

“Well, you’re incredibly tight.” Bruce digs into Tony’s shoulders for emphasis, pulling another groan out of him. “Not sure if that’s from the armour or hunching over your worktop all the time. Maybe both. You should probably be getting massages regularly. Do you get headaches?”

“Sometimes.” Tony sighs. “I have a masseuse in Malibu, but…”

“You could tell him, y’know. That this isn’t your home.”

“He can barely handle the tower where he has his own space, let alone the Malibu house. Besides, we need you as a buffer and you hate airplanes.”

Bruce is silent for a while. He digs his fingers into the muscle at the base of Tony’s skull, right above the atlas. “You hate it here, don’t you?”

Tony closes his eyes, lets the cold marble cradle him.

That’s not true, not really. But New York is a complicated place for Tony. It’s full of ghosts. His parents, primarily. His misspent youth. His worst years of debauchery. There’s the portal, too—the echo of it, living inside his skin. He feels…unmoored, here. Out of place.

“I don’t hate it,” he says.

Bruce’s hands still on his skin. They’re warm and wide. “You know, I always planned to leave, eventually. I can’t stay here.”

Tony stiffens. “You could.”

“I destroyed Harlem.”

“Destroyed it, saved it…”

“I probably shouldn’t stay in the U.S., even.”

Tony’s throat closes. He blinks his eyes open. “Bruce,” he says, helplessly.

Bruce doesn’t say anything, and Tony sits up and turns to look at him. Bruce’s expression is unreadable. Curious and flat, the way he looks at a test tube in the lab.

“You can’t keep me safe forever, Tony,” Bruce says. His voice is gentle, even as it strikes Tony to his core. “You’re just one man.”

“I’ve done harder things,” Tony says fiercely, and Bruce tilts his head to meet his gaze. His eyes are sad behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

“I don’t want to be another one of your burdens, Tony. I can take care of myself.”

“Bruce.”

Bruce looks at him for a long time. A small smile quirks at his mouth. “What would you have me do?”

“Let me help you,” Tony says, immediately.

“You promised me a way out if I asked. Anywhere I wanted to go.”

Tony swallows, because he did promise that. He’d promised that like an idiot, before he’d known how important Bruce would become to him.

“I did,” he says.

Something in Bruce softens, then. His expression shifts. “You don’t know how to ask for what you want, because you expect to be denied the things you want the most.” He reaches out and brushes Tony’s hair back from his face. “You’re quite fragile, under all your bluster.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. This is Bruce in a nutshell, though. Effortlessly brutal and kind, all at once.

“What do you want, Tony? If you could move us like pawns, regardless of our wants, what would you do with us?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Bruce says patiently. “But if you could-”

“I _could_ ,” Tony tells him. He laughs a little, shaking his head. Bruce’s fingers tangle in his curls. “You think I’m being kind? Bruce, I am the richest man in the _world_. There is nothing I can’t get that I want. I am always the smartest man in the room. I am always the most powerful. I could kill someone tomorrow and never go to prison. I _bombed Gulmira_ with no repercussions. Not even an official inquiry. It was covered up by the U.S.A.F.. I could find you wherever you are, no matter where you go. In this _galaxy_. I control _satellites_. You’re talking like I can’t do what you’re proposing, but I _could_. I absolutely could. So I can’t think like that, the way you’re asking me to. Where does it end? How do I know how to stop if I don’t respect the free will of the people I love? I’m already too much.” 

“So the alternative is to never ask for what you want when it matters?” Bruce asks him. “You’re not the autocratic leader of America, Tony. You act like you’re one step away from becoming a supervillain-”

“I am one step away from becoming a supervillain!” Tony says, exasperated. “So are you! We are _so powerful_ , Bruce. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“You _know_ it scares the hell out of me,” Bruce says. “So you know I know what I’m saying when I tell you to ask for what you want from us.”

“I fucking want you to stay! You know I want you to stay! I want to go home to my private beach and bring you and my sad sack bond mate and meet up with Pep and Happy see how beautiful you all look in the Malibu sun. I want my workshop with the rest of my bots. I want to feel safe in my own fucking skin again. I want to sleep for two weeks. But I have a Fortune 500 company, and responsibilities, and Pepper is too sad about our breakup to be my friend right now, and my stupid fucking so-called soulmate left me, and now you tell me you’re leaving too. So what’s the fucking point of asking when you know what I want and we don’t want the same thing, huh?” Tony’s shouting, now, and he knows it’s stupid. He knows it’s dangerous to rile Bruce up, but he’s angry. He’s exhausted and heartbroken and maybe dying, _again_ , and one of the best friends he’s ever made is going to leave him when they’ve just gotten to know each other. He’s fucking angry.

“Okay,” Bruce says, smiling.

“Okay what?”

“Okay,” Bruce says, “let’s go to California.”

Tony gapes at him. “ _What_?”

Bruce shrugs. “Let’s go to California. You’ve got multiple bedrooms in your mansion, I assume? Or is it all one giant glass loft?”

Tony stares at him. He glances around. “Am I being punk’d?”

“Tony.” Tony turns back to him. “I’ve never had a friend like you.”

“Well, sure,” Tony says, confused, but Bruce hushes him.

“Listen to me,” he says, and Tony closes his mouth. “I’ve never been as close to anyone as we’ve become and had it be platonic. Not once in my life have I had a friend like you. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I think so,” Tony says. He’s had Rhodey, and Pepper, and Happy, but Bruce isn’t like them. Rhodey takes care of him, but he would have never given him a post-heat massage. Pepper might have, but they had feelings for each other. What he has with Bruce is closer to the bond that the omegas in movies have: a fierce, intimate, ride or die kind of love. He’s never felt anything like it. “Is this…I’m not sure I understand what’s happening right now.”

“We’re Pack Bonded, Tony.”

Tony gapes at him. “We are not.”

“We are,” Bruce says, amused. “We have been for weeks. And Steve has bonded to us, too.”

“Steve isn’t my alpha,” Tony snarls, and Bruce nods.

“You’re right; he’s not.” He looks at Tony patiently. Tony stares back.

“Ok, I’ll bite,” he says, when it’s clear Bruce isn’t going to say anything. “How can we be Pack Bonded without a Pack leader?”

Bruce smiles. “Tony, whose territory is this?”

Tony frowns. “Well. Mine, I guess.”

“And who would you say is the dominant personality in the tower, of the three of us?”

“We aren’t a Pack,” Tony says slightly hysterical, because there’s a terrible suspicion creeping up on him. “Bruce, I’m not an alpha.”

“You’re right; you’re intersex.”

“I’m…yeah, I have CAH, but I mean, Steve is… he’s Captain America for fuck’s sake, I don’t-”

“Steve has been paying Obeisance to you since he moved in here. It’s very clear in your interactions, Tony. In his mind, you are his alpha.” Tony opens his mouth to protest, but Bruce speaks over him. “Think about it, Tony. Really think about it. He brings you food. He always backs down from arguments. He follows your commands. He’s exhibiting textbook behaviour for an alpha joining a new pack.”

“No one does that anymore!”

“Steve does a lot of things that no one does anymore,” Bruce reminds him.

Tony rubs a hand over his face. “You’re being incredibly manipulative while I’m vulnerable and exhausted,” he complains.

Bruce doesn’t deny it. “You need to learn to ask for what you want. Just ask. I suspect that’s most of the problem you’re having with Steve.”

“You’re anti-dynamic too,” Tony argues. “Packs are-…traditional.”

“You, Pepper, and Rhodes used to be a Pack before he was deployed. That’s very common. Families, high school and college friend groups. Adults not having proper Packs and being socially maladjusted because of it is practically _The Atlantic_ ’s favourite talking point.”

“That’s bullshit, come on-”

“It isn’t, actually,” Bruce says. “We’ve got data on cortisol levels. You don’t have to be any particular dynamic to have a Pack. But you’re ignoring what I’m telling you about Steve.”

“Sorry, what? Can’t hear you. I’m too tired after a brutal heat where my soulmate, who is supposed to at the very least want to jump my bones and stuff me full of incredibly well-proportioned babies, fucked off to evacuate refugees from Chad or wherever the fuck he is.”

“You give people things to tie them to you, because you don’t trust them to stay with you _for_ _you_. Rhodes is your military liaison. Pepper is your CEO. Happy is SI’s head of security. You tried to give me a lab. So it’s difficult for you to imagine that maybe being Sight Bonded to you isn’t a burden for Steve, but something he’s always wanted; a dream come true that he’s terrified of ruining more than he already thinks he has.”

Tony stands up. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“You don’t,” Bruce agrees, “but you should.”

“If he wanted me why would he leave?” Tony sneers. He grabs his shirt from the island and pulls it back on. He feels uncomfortably naked.

“Did you ask him to stay?”

“I shouldn’t have to! He thinks he’s my soulmate, doesn’t he?”

Bruce folds his arms across his chest. “So you didn’t ask him to stay.”

“What the fuck do you want me to say, Bruce?” Tony snaps.

“You try to set yourself up as something good for the people you love. Come to Stark Tower—it’ll be great! State of the art labs, it’s like Candyland, you’ll love it.” Bruce puts on a terrible fake smile as he impersonates Tony’s sales pitch, so plastic Tony’s almost offended. “It’s an incredibly alpha way of relating to people, which is probably part of why Steve decided to pay Obeisance to you. But Steve’s an alpha, too; he wants to give you things, and you don’t let him. This whole time he’s been fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to make you happy. And he doesn’t know how to be taken care of, and he doesn’t want anything material from you, so you’re also fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to make _him_ happy. If you’re such a vehement anti-dynamic activist, why don’t you just _ask_ him?”

“I did ask him!”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he wants to be a good soulmate,” Tony grumbles, his lip curling into a sneer. “I tried telling him he wasn’t obligated and he got angry. Then he hid in the gym, like always. I’d tell him to move in there if he didn’t mysteriously disappear every time I need to use it.”

“You don’t like feeling like an obligation?”

“Why are you asking me stupid questions?” Tony says tiredly. “Look, I have a lot of work I need to catch up on, so-”

“Tony, listen for just a minute.” Bruce pulls off his glasses, cleaning them in the hem of his shirt. He puts them on and folds his arms over his chest. “Do you understand the difference between you telling me that I’d like it here and you can keep me safe, and you asking me to stay because you _want_ me here?”

Tony frowns. “Steve hasn’t done anything like that. He just…hovers. Awkwardly.”

“Neither have _you_ , Tony,” Bruce says, a small smile playing around the corner of his mouth. “That’s what I’m telling you. Steve is treating you like his alpha. He won’t ask anything of you. He’s waiting for you to ask him.”

“I don’t _want_ that!” Tony says, throwing his hands up.

“Then what do you want?” Bruce prompts him. “This is what I keep asking you, Tony. What do you want? If you could have anything, what would you want?”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Panic is bubbling up from behind the arc reactor like a volcanic eruption, thick as sludge in his throat. He needs to get out of here. Now.

He pushes past Bruce without speaking, stumbling a little. Bruce makes an aborted sound, tries to catch at Tony’s arm, but Tony’s better at hand-to-hand combat than Bruce is. Bruce is a scientist, and the Hulk has always gotten by through brute force. He doesn’t know anything about how to use his soft, human body to hold someone who is trying to evade his grasp.

Tony snags a pair of homing cuffs from the end table by the couch and steps out onto the balcony. Broken tiles cut into the leathery skin on the bottom of his feet, but he doesn’t give a shit about that. He just needs to get out of here.

“Tony!” Bruce shouts, but Tony isn’t listening to him.

“J, deploy Mark XXXIX, Gemini.”

“Tony-”

Tony isn’t listening. He’s walking across the broken balcony tile on bare feet, and his blood is rushing so loud in his ears he feels like he can’t hear anything. His heart is going to crawl out of his throat.

“Wait-”

Tony keeps on walking, right up to the break in the glass partition where Steve had sat and painted weeks ago.

He keeps on walking, right up until he steps off the edge.

His body knows what to do, even as he’s completely disassociated from it. He spreads out to slow his trajectory, legs apart, wrists wide and ready to receive the armour. He hasn’t done this since the Battle of New York, but he’s refined the deployment process now. And Gemini has been complete for weeks; he did a test run ages ago. It only takes a few seconds before the suit is closing around him, warm and safe and perfect; the only place Tony ever feels safe in the world, these days.

As soon as he’s sealed up, JARVIS stabilises their flight, pulling Tony up in a lazy spiral and taking him out over the Hudson. They’ve done this a few times, when Tony’s anxiety’s gotten the better of him. At first, Tony couldn’t bear to be in the suit, but he couldn’t bear to be parted from it either. He’d taken to wearing the remote interface everywhere he went, even inside the tower. But he’d been too tired after his heat, and left the headset in his bedroom. Stupid. He’s never going anywhere without it again.

It’ll be easier, without Bruce and Steve around. Tony’s gotten sloppy, letting his guard down because he’s got the world’s two best guard dogs in the world lounging about while he holes himself up and works himself to the bone.

_Like a supervillain in a movie. Alone in my lair. A cave on the seaside. A technological marvel carved into the forbidding grey cliff._

Tony laughs, but the sound gets stuck in his throat. It aches, deeply.

“Sir?”

Tony blinks. It doesn’t sound like the first time JARVIS has asked for his attention. “Yeah, sorry J.”

“Not at all, sir,” JARVIS says, gently enough that Tony feels warm inside. “Where would you like to go?”

Tony comes back to himself in pieces. He’s out over the open ocean, the sun glimmering off of the waves in bright sparkles of golden light. It’s early afternoon, bright and beautiful. There’s not a cloud in the sky.

“Plot us a flight to the Kármán line, J. Let’s go say hello to the sun.”

There’s the briefest of pauses; it’s almost an eternity for JARVIS. Tony knows why. He hasn’t prepared for a flight of that magnitude. He’s still wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and nothing else. But Gemini was built for this. Now’s as good a time as any to put him to the test.

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS tells him, and Tony smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u Hufflepuff1990 for suggesting that Bruce get involved in _i have faults enough_. I know this is not what you were imagining lol but it was a comment that helped me get unstuck when I couldn't figure out what the hell to do with this fic. Even when I don't reply immediately to comments I read them in my email inbox and they really hep me a lot.
> 
> Reminder that the next work in this series will have a happy ending, even if this one doesn't! I promise it will all work out.


	3. vanity and pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost forgot the warnings, oops!
> 
> cw: alcohol, drunkenness, intrusive thoughts, in general Tony having a Really Bad Time

Steve’s not sure what he was imagining would be waiting for him when he arrived at JFK, but it certainly wasn’t a town car waiting to drive him back to the tower. The man at the wheel isn’t Happy Hogan, although he supposes that Hogan has better things to do. He isn’t quite sure what Hogan actually does for SI. As far as Steve has seen, Hogan’s job mostly seems to be standing there with an amused, exasperated, or long-suffering expression while either Pepper Potts or Tony berate him or each other about something that isn’t really his fault.

“What’s your name?” Steve asks the man, waving him off when he tries to take Steve’s duffel.

“Evan Freeman, sir.”

He’s painfully young, and handsome, in a good southern boy kind of way. His hair is cropped close to his head, high and tight. His dark eyes are creased ever so slightly, older than the rest of him. He’s got some of the smoothest skin Steve’s ever seen, gleaming a rich warm brown in the setting sun. Steve would guess he’s a beta.

 _Not that it matters_ , he tells himself sternly.

“Army?” Steve hazards.

“Air Force, sir,” he says, “Senior Airman.”

Steve shakes his head. “Shoulda guessed,” he says, mournfully. “You’re too stiff to be army.”

The young man’s mouth twitches ever so slightly.

“Nice to meet you, Evan, but you can relax. I’m just a New Yorker who needs a ride home.”

Evan relaxes fractionally. When Steve offers him a grin, he smiles back. “It’s an honour, sir.”

“Stop that,” Steve tells him, and Evan laughs a little, sheepishly. “We haven’t met, have we, Evan? Steve Rogers.”

“I know who you are,” Evan says, but he tucks the sign with Steve’s name printed on it under his left arm and lets Steve shake his hand anyway. “I was supposed to replace Mr. Hogan as Mr. Stark’s driver and bodyguard, but he hardly ever needs me. Mr. Hogan said I should make myself available to you as well.”

“Since Tony usually flies or drives himself,” Steve says, and Evan nods. “Well. I’ll admit, I’m just as happy taking the subway. But I’ll keep that in mind.” He studies Evan carefully. “You’ve been bored, huh?”

Steve gets the feeling that Evan would blush if he could. He dips his head and shakes out a no, then opens up the car door without meeting Steve’s eyes.

“Uh huh,” Steve says, grinning. He gets in the car anyway. “What are your feelings on The Hulk?”

Evan blinks at him. “Uh. That the big green fella?”

Steve nods.

“He’s…I don’t know that I really have an opinion,” Evan says.

Steve smiles. “So you wouldn’t mind driving him around?”

Evan falters. “I’m not sure…he’d fit in any of Mr. Stark’s cars…”

“I’ll introduce you sometime,” Steve tells him, laughing quietly. Bruce will either take pity on the kid or eat him alive, but either has to be better than sitting around waiting for Tony to remember that he’s rich and has a personal driver. Tony barely goes out for fun these days, anyway; he’s always working. Steve would be more worried if this didn’t follow Tony’s usual track record. He’d spent enough time on Google to know that Tony frequently disappeared from the social scene for weeks or months at a time, only to inevitably reappear with a scandal that splashed across every gossip rag from New York to Morocco.

He makes easy small talk with Evan on the ride back to the tower. He’s only 22, which is sobering considering his rank. Steve isn’t sure how long it takes to become a Senior Airman these days, but it’s probably long enough that Evan joined up right out of high school. He knows, of course, that sometimes the military is still the only avenue for social mobility a young person who comes from nothing’s got. But it’s frustrating, how little the state of social welfare has progressed since he went into the ice. He’d hoped for so many things from the future when he was young, and flying cars was the least of them. Sometimes, on his worst days, Steve thinks that not even a single thing from the future meets his expectations.

He thinks, then, of Tony’s fantastical workshop, a place where the future blooms bright: blueprints and formulas gleaming a pale, iridescent blue. He’s spent the past few days doing his best to forget why he’d left the tower, but now, driving back after almost a week apart, he feels inexplicably nervous. He hasn’t gone this long without seeing Tony since they discovered they were soulmates. He feels a little like he’s crawling out of his skin. Separation anxiety, Romanov called it, although she was making fun of him then. He looks down at his hands, clenches and unclenches his fists. He wonders if Tony would scent him again, if he asks nicely.

He does feel strangely…settled, after the mission. Nothing particularly exciting had happened. He suspects that SHIELD was testing him, making sure he was really ready for the field. But it had been nice, to feel useful again. To do something that Steve is undeniably _good_ at. After messing up with Tony again and again, it was refreshing to just…follow his instincts, and get everything right. It’s a small triumph, but he feels like he knows who and where he is again.

Romanov had noticed, but he never expected to hide anything from her. She’d told him he could have a permanent position on the STRIKE team if he wanted it, but of course he’d ignored her invitation. There’s no way Tony would move to D.C.. Maybe, if he could live in the tower and only go in for special ops, when they really need him…

Steve shakes the thought off. He and Tony need to talk and figure out their Bond before he thinks about taking a job that will force him to leave home for extended periods of time.

He thinks about the book that’s sitting in his duffel bag, although he’s only about thirty pages in. Romanov had recommended it to him when he’d asked about the word “intersex.” After the mission, on the flight back to D.C., he’d looked for the kind of bookstore that was likely to carry information on omega rights and anti-dynamic activism and LGBT+…things, and East City Bookshop had been the first place that had come up. The omega boy manning the till had bright sunset-pink hair and matching nails, and he’d been more than happy to talk to Steve. Steve had ended up walking out with a whole stack of books, including one that was supposed to be a historical examination of consent and/or lack thereof in heat and rut.

Steve’s pretty sure his face was red as a tomato by the time he left the bookshop, but the young man hadn’t said anything about it. If he’d recognised Steve, he didn’t say anything about that either. Towards the end, though, he’d also quietly handed Steve a book about questioning your sexuality when you’re an alpha from a traditional background, and something called “alpha-supremacy.” Steve has never heard the term before, but he’s pretty sure he gets the gist. He’s probably going to read that one next.

Really what he wants to do is talk to Tony about some of the books he bought. Before he went to Saint Joseph’s, he thought that Tony would get upset if he asked him about any of this stuff. But after their talk in the workshop—at least, until Steve got something wrong, like he always does—he thinks maybe Tony would be happy to know that he’s reading _Sexing the Body_. That he’s trying to be more…modern, or radical, or whatever. He thinks maybe Tony would want to hear what he’s learning. And then, maybe, when Tony trusts him not to be such a brute, they could talk about what kind of relationship Tony wants them to have. And maybe, next time Tony has a…a heat…

Steve swallows and shoves that thought away, hard. He certainly can’t be thinking about that with Evan driving him home. He doesn’t think a heat with Tony would be what most alphas expect, anyhow. Tony himself was quite alpha, in almost every way. There’d been a lot of nasty articles that Steve had refused to read about how Tony used being stealth to hide that he was just like every other alpha: a wolf amongst sheep. Steve was pretty sure that was intolerant in some way, although he didn’t know precisely how. But Steve _had_ thought Tony was an alpha, up until Tony had used that word, and then he’d had to go to the gym and take a few bags apart because he’d wanted to ask _so many questions_. Invasive, stupid questions that were more likely than not to offend Tony, or worse, hurt his feelings. Thinking back, he’d realised that this is what Tony meant when he’d apologised to Steve about not wearing blockers. He’d said that he knew his scent was weird, that he should have warned him. He’d been surprised by the idea of Steve liking his scent. He must have thought that Steve was acting like some kind of bigot. Like always. He’d hurt Tony, again, without even knowing it, because he couldn’t control his own stupid knot. It’s no wonder that Tony had been nervous to bring up the idea of his heat. He’d probably thought Steve was going to act like every ruthless alpha stereotype from the pictures. Based on previous experiences, Steve isn’t so sure that he wouldn’t. He just can’t seem to control himself around Tony. All he wants to do is touch him. Everywhere. He wants to put his mouth all over him. He wants-

He squeezes his eyes shut and digs his nails into the soft skin of his palms.

It’s a long drive back to the tower.

By the time he gets home, Steve’s planning to head straight to his rooms and take a shower. He wants to wash off all that airport grime. After washing up he’d like to see Tony, maybe bring him some of the stuff he’s reading. Maybe they can eat dinner together again.

“Welcome home, Captain,” JARVIS tells him when he steps into the elevator. “I hate to trouble you when you’ve just arrived, but there’s a situation that requires your attention in the Avengers’ communal living room.”

Steve blinks, then tilts his head up, looking for the security camera. He knows JARVIS isn’t human, but it still only seems polite to look him in the eye while they’re talking. “Uh. Is everything alright?”

“I wouldn’t say that, no. But it’s nothing to be alarmed about.”

Steve finds that response quite alarming, but he doesn’t think that he should tell JARVIS that. Instead he sets his duffel down and pulls his shield out of its round carrying case, strapping it to his arm.

“Can I ask for a sitrep?” Steve asks.

“Sir and Dr. Banner had a strong disagreement yesterday afternoon. Sir became very upset and experienced the preliminary symptoms of a panic attack. He proceeded to take the nearest shortcut out of the living room, which naturally meant jumping off of the balcony and calling a suit to him mid-air. Dr. Banner reacted as you might expect to this.”

“He Hulked out.”

“Yes,” JARVIS says, sounding impossibly tired. It’s moments like this when Steve understands why Tony treats JARVIS like he’s a real person.

“And Tony,” Steve presses, “he’s okay?”

“I would never use that term,” JARVIS deadpans. “But he is unharmed.”

“Did he come back?”

“Sir has not returned to the tower. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you where he is.”

Steve sighs. He rubs a hand over his face. “Right. Okay.” He steels himself. “Is Hulk aggressive?”

“No, Captain. He recognised my voice. I put on some children’s television programming, and it seemed to calm him down. I had thought he might change back as he slept, but I suspect now that both Hulk and Dr. Banner are worried about sir, and this heightened state is keeping him in Hulk form. But I am not an expert on Dr. Banner’s biology, and I cannot say for sure how his transformations work.”

“Well, you know more than me, that’s for sure,” Steve says.

The doors ping.

“Wish me luck, JARVIS.”

“Good luck, Captain.”

As soon as the elevator doors open, the acrid stench of upset alpha floods the tiny chamber. There’s something wrong with it; it’s chemical, tinged with something noxious. The closest Steve’s ever smelled to how the Hulk smells is people who are sick with cancer and going through chemotherapy. But he supposes this is what Tony meant, when he’d implied that Bruce is intersex, too. Bruce is an omega. Hulk is alpha rage personified. His scent alone is almost enough to bring the average man to his knees.

Steve walks into the communal living room with some trepidation. He’d expected more chaos, a few things broken, but instead it mostly just seems like the couches have been shoved around. In the centre of the carpet, huge and toxic green, sits the Hulk. He’s sitting with his chin in his hands, his expression grumpy as he watches Sesame Street.

“Hey, big fella,” Steve says, and Hulk turns to look at him.

“Star Man arrive too late,” Hulk complains, and Steve nods, slowly.

“You’re right, I did. Sorry about that.” He glances around at the living room, but there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage. “What happened here?”

“Star Man hurt Tin Man feelings. Puny Banner try to talk to Tin Man. Tin Man get scared.” Hulk shrugs; it’s a massive movement, huge slabs of muscle shifting like platelets under his skin. It’s a humbling sight, just enough to distract Steve from his own useless guilt. “Puny Banner think he so smart. Stupid. Should know Tin Man not like talk feeling. Banner fault. Star Man fault, too.”

“You’re right,” Steve says again, and Hulk huffs at him. “Do you think you could let Banner come back anytime soon?”

Hulk shrugs again. His stomach rumbles, loud enough to shake the floor. “Banner worry too much. Just turn into Hulk again.”

“Right…” Steve scratches at his head. He glances over at Hulk. “Okay. First thing’s first, you’re hungry, right? Why don’t we get some food in you, and then we can figure out the next step.”

“Hulk want burger. Tin Man always eat burger when sad.” He frowns a little, his dark green mouth stretching into a huge downward curve. “Tin Man gone long time. Hulk think Tin Man back now. Tin Man o.k.?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits. “JARVIS said he’s not harmed.”

Hulk growls, his scent spiking with anger. “Voice stupid. Tin Man hurt inside, not outside. Inside hurt bad, too.”

“That’s true,” Steve allows. He tries to think of how to explain this situation. “Can I come sit with you?”

Hulk shrugs again, and Steve walks over and puts down his duffel bag. He rests his shield on it, as this is pretty clearly not a combat situation, and slumps into one end of the closest couch.

“JARVIS, could you order some burgers for me and Hulk?”

“Certainly, Captain.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. He’s never used JARVIS to order food, but he knows Tony does. JARVIS handles all of the grocery shopping for the communal kitchen, and keeps track of all of the household stuff in the tower like toilet paper and detergent. Steve doesn’t really understand JARVIS yet, but he can certainly trust him with a food order.

“Sometimes, I think, Tony really needs his own space,” Steve says, looking down at his hands. “He’s a…complicated man. He gets lonely, but I think he also gets overwhelmed by people. He needs time to decompress and work on his own. He’s not used to having people in his space all the time like this, the way me and Bruce have been. So I think maybe Tony just needs some time to himself for a bit. That might be the only way he can heal his inside hurts. Do you understand what I mean?”

Hulk considers this. He lets out a low, rumbling, thoughtful kind of sound. “Banner think you wrong.”

“Okay,” Steve allows, “he can disagree. But Tony left because they got into a fight, right? So maybe he isn’t thinking so clearly right now.” He gestures vaguely towards Hulk. “If he was, you wouldn’t be here.”

Hulk smirks at that. “Star Man stupid,” he tells Steve. “Star Man make Tin Man think Star Man not like him.”

Steve can feel his heart cracking in his chest. It’s a familiar pain by now. He closes his eyes, takes a breath. He lets it all out. “I’m still learning how to be a good friend to Tony,” he tells Hulk, smiling sheepishly up at him. “Bruce is, too. Isn’t that why they fought?”

Hulk grumbles. “Hulk not smart. Not good talk. Star Man ask Banner why fight.” He turns and frowns down at Steve, his wide brow wrinkling like thick leather. “Ask.”

“I will,” Steve says. “I promise.”

Hulk nods at that. “Hulk think Banner feel better soon. Hulk want burger. Hulk eat burger, then Banner back.”

Steve ends up watching three different family films with Hulk: _Wall-E_ , _Fern Gully_ , and _Who Framed Roger Rabbit._ Steve isn’t sure if that last one is really for kids, but JARVIS had said it was one of Tony’s favourite films when it came out, so they’d watched it through. It’s pathetic, probably, the two of them sitting in the living room eating Tony’s favourite comfort food and watching one of his favourite films, but Steve doesn’t mind it so much. Tony is his soulmate, and Hulk certainly isn’t going to judge him for sentimentality. He’d cried big fat green tears during _Fern Gully_ , and then Steve had been forced to run and get a roll of paper towels because apparently his tears are radioactive. Steve had put a trash bag full of stained green paper towels into a metal container in Bruce’s lab marked with a biohazard symbol. Eventually, full and exhausted, Hulk had fallen asleep.

Steve feels a little bad leaving him there, but there’s certainly no bed big enough for him in the tower. He wonders if maybe the tower renovations include a space for Hulk. He knows Tony’s been working on making it a place for all the Avengers to use as a home base if necessary. Tony probably thinks he’s being sneaky about it, but Steve’s been an intelligence operative before, and Tony hasn’t been trying very hard to hide what he’s working on. There’s something to be observed there, about trust maybe, but Steve isn’t in the mood to look on the bright side.

He takes his duffel bag and his shield up to his rooms and changes out of his clothes, then hops straight into the shower. He still doesn’t know where Tony is. He hopes that JARVIS would tell him if something happened, but he doesn’t really know what the protocol for that kind of thing is. In the old days, a soulmate would have automatically gotten rights to any medical information about their Bonded. But he and Tony aren’t Bonded, not really. They haven’t announced anything. There’s no bite mark in Steve’s neck, even if Steve’s body feels like it’s on fire every single time Tony touches him. He doesn’t even know if he can keep a Bond Bite, anyway. He’s never scarred before.

He presses his forehead to the cold glass of the shower, breathes out. He remembers Tony’s hand in his, squeezing, gently. He remembers Tony telling him, a mix of shock and delight washing over his handsome, tired face: _You’re actually the real fucking deal, aren’t you?_ Like Steve was suddenly worth something, to Tony. Like he was someone Tony would want to be tied to. He thinks about Tony calling him a _sweetheart_ and it breaks something open in his chest, so deep inside of him he isn’t sure he’ll ever heal back the same way again.

Steve shuts off the water, then stands there for a moment in the empty shower, dripping. He feels wrung dry.

He wraps a towel around himself and then leans over, picking his phone up from the sink counter. He and Tony have texted before, although not much. Mostly little things, like Steve telling him to come down to dinner, or Tony telling him there were doughnuts in the kitchen. They text like flatmates that are barely friends, not…whatever it is they are. Steve sucks in a slow breath.

He hits call.

* * *

Tony didn’t realise how poorly he was holding himself together until he fell apart.

Things have always been like that, he knows. He’s always been particularly stupid about his own mental state. He’d let Ty wrap him up in fucking knots. He’d let Obie manipulate him, betray him, try to kill him. Twice. He would have succeeded, if DUM-E hadn’t saved his stupid, worthless life.

 _Don’t waste your life. Don’t waste your life. Don’t waste your fucking life, the one thing he asked from me._ Well what the hell did Yinsen even-

_Shut up shut up shut up shut up-_

There are some things that are sacred. Even to Tony.

He likes it in Malibu. All his favourite clothes are here. U and Butterfingers, and JARVIS of course. Although JARVIS is always with him. It was the primary reason he’d been made. So Tony would never be alone. Not ever. No matter where he goes, his non-corporeal best friend he made out of grief and wishes and some alchemy he doesn’t even remember because he was so fucking blackout drunk and they were dead, they were fucking _dead_ -

Okay. So maybe Tony’s drunk.

He’s sitting on his balcony in a plush robe and little else. Wine red. His father’s, once, which he’d stolen just to piss Howard off. But it's comfortable, and worn, and still smells a little like the cigars Howard used to share with Obie. It's probably fucked up to take comfort in that but Tony's drunk and heartbroken, so who's gonna judge him? It doesn't really smell like that, probably, anyway. His father's been dead for 21 years. That's probably all in Tony’s head. A lot of things are just in Tony’s head.

His phone’s ringing. Bruce, probably, but he doesn’t want to talk to Bruce. He closes his eyes, lets his head tip back against the back of the lounger. If he closes his eyes, all that matters is the sun and the sound of the ocean.

His phone rings again.

Tony frowns. He leans over, picks it up.

For a moment, he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. It’s Steve. Steve asleep, a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth, on the workshop sofa. He’s got a streak of black charcoal on one cheekbone. Originally Tony set the photo as Steve’s caller ID as a joke, but looking at it now, he still manages to look like Fragonard’s Endymion. He’s unreal.

Steve has never called him before. Tony blinks. Is he still on mission? Is he dying?

Tony picks up the phone and immediately puts it on video.

“Are you dying?” he asks.

For a moment he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. There’s a lot of pale skin, and he thinks maybe Steve has his phone pressed to his ear still. But then the camera moves away, and slowly, with the delight of the very, very inebriated, Tony discovers that he is in fact staring at Steve’s strangely hairless, impeccably sculpted, downright edible pectorals. There’s a flash of pink nipple, the top of his abs, before the camera is trained on Steve’s blushing face.

“Helloooo handsome,” Tony drawls, grinning. “Well, well, well. I didn’t know you’d graduated to this level of technology 101. Have you been practicing sexting, too? Who taught you? Romanov?”

“Tony,” Steve says, blushing even pinker. How cute. “I didn’t- I just meant to call you, I didn’t know there, uh. I’m so sorry, I’ll go put on a shirt-”

“Or don’t,” Tony says, and Steve swallows. It’s showy. It’s mouth-watering. “I like this view.”

Steve’s mouth quirks, as though he’s fighting a laugh. His eyes are wide as saucers. “I…are you. Have you been drinking?” He frowns, squinting down into the screen. His patrician nose replaces Tony’s view of his lovely collarbones. “Where are you?”

“Malibu,” Tony says, “where I live.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone. Steve’s face is contorted, but Tony is too drunk to properly contemplate what it means. He settles for pulling the phone back and showing Steve his own shirtless torso, framed in lush folds of dark merlot fabric. He makes quite the pretty picture. He's done enough photoshoots to know his angles.

“Fair’s fair,” he explains.

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. He licks his lips, which is nice. “Tony,” he burrs, and his voice is so _deep_.

“So you _are_ interested,” Tony muses, and Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ve been swimming on my private beach. What’s your excuse, hmm? Wet hair…my, my, Captain, were you _showering_? Are you _naked_?”

“Tony!” Steve hisses. Then he sucks in a breath, shaking his head like a wet dog. “Sorry. You’re…I’m sorry. Give me a minute.”

The phone tilts wildly, then goes dark. It’s not true black, and there’s no notification that pops up, so Tony suspects that Steve has just tossed his phone face-down onto his bedspread.

“Ooh,” he coos. “Scandalous, Captain.”

“I’m getting dressed,” Steve says, muffled, and Tony pouts.

“Why?”

“Because I think you’re really drunk, and you’re probably going to regret this when you’re sober again.”

“If I remember in the morning,” Tony mutters.

“Have you had that much?”

“Dunno,” Tony admits. He tips his head back, watches the clouds stream by. “Lost count.”

“Tony,” Steve says, and he sounds sad. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tony tells him airily. “That’s why I came to California. Pepper’s here, and Happy, and Rhodey, and everything is sunny and normal. And Rhodey is an enabler who doesn’t ask me difficult questions, which is why he is the best. He loves me.”

“He does,” Steve agrees, although he still sounds sad. “Lots of people do.”

“Not really,” Tony laughs, because he knows that isn’t true. “Lots of people want or need something from me, which is different. Learned that one ages ago. Though sometimes I forget.” He sighs. He hates being this drunk. It always sends him on a wild emotional roller coaster. So many ups and downs. He doesn’t want Steve to see the down part. There’s nothing Tony hates more than pity. Worse, pity from his so-called soulmate, Captain America. “Fucking joke.”

“Hey,” Steve says, and Tony blinks. Right. He’s still on the phone. Steve’s back, dressed in a plain SHIELD-issue t-shirt and sweatpants. He’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, his hair all rumpled. He’s so cute. “I can probably come out there tomorrow, but I can’t leave now. I have some things I need to take care of here first.”

“Why?” Tony asks, frowning.

Steve sighs. “I don’t want to upset you, but Bruce Hulked out after you left. I don’t know what you fought about, and we don’t have to talk about it, but I can’t leave him like this.”

“No, no,” Tony says, shaking his head. “I mean…why are you coming here?”

Steve stills, then. His expression shifts through several motions, although Tony doesn’t quite know what to do with any of them. “Do you…not want me there?”

“No,” Tony says, and Steve’s face falls so visibly it’s like the fucking sun goes out. “No, no, I mean. Fuck. I’m too drunk for this.”

“It’s okay, Tony,” Steve says, and he’s not _listening_. He never fucking listens. “Actually, I…Fury and Romanov have been bugging me about taking more missions with the STRIKE team while Barton is on leave.”

Tony would react to that, if he wasn’t completely paralysed by the pain that bursts open in his chest like a blooming flower. Tony has left his body. Tony isn’t even here.

Steve’s watching him, now, though what he sees makes him frown. He’s got a magnificent frown, Captain Rogers. His chin dimples with it. It’s quite foreboding. But then the frown melts, and he just looks nervous. He bites his full bottom lip, the one Tony’s wanted to suck on for weeks.

“Tony?” he prompts, and Tony sucks in a breath. It feels like his throat is on fire.

Right. He has to answer.

“And you said?” he manages, completely tonelessly. He sounds like his fucking father.

“Nothing yet,” Steve says, and Tony’s stomach turns to lead. Steve glances away, then back at Tony. “If you wanted me to come-”

“It’s okay,” Tony says quickly. He shrugs. “This is perfect, actually. You do…whatever you’ve gotta do for SHIELD. I have six million things to take care of at the SI campus. The plan was to slowly transition to a bicoastal operation—NY for business, Cali for production. There’s a lot left to do, Pepper’s been driving me crazy, so. This is great. It all works out.” He’s babbling, he knows, but this wasn’t part of the plan. This is so far from the fucking plan. Tony’s a futurist, but he couldn’t have imagined this outcome. He feels so _stupid_.

 _So this is how it ends_ , he thinks. _Not with a bang, but with a video call. Dear Abby, my soulmate and I gave up on our failing relationship over StarkVid™ while I was drunk off my ass. I don’t even really remember what happened. Please tell me what to do._

Steve’s frowning hard now. His expression is almost fierce as he studies Tony through the screen. “Tony. Do you want me to come?”

Tony quirks a smile. “Do you want to come?”

Steve laughs, low and frustrated. He scrubs a hand roughly through his wet hair. He’s so soft like this. Beautiful, even in his anger. “Why can’t you just say what you mean?”

“Why don’t you answer my question?”

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. He takes a slow, deep breath. “I don’t want to be a burden to you while you’re working, Tony. If my being there would help you, I’ll come. But if I’ll just be in the way, then I don’t have to. I can’t tell what you want; you have to tell me.”

Tony laughs. He can’t help it. “A burden, huh?”

Steve’s frowning again. “What did I do wrong this time?” he asks, tiredly, and that’s the answer, isn’t it? That’s Tony’s answer, right there.

“I’ve haven’t been beholden to anyone since 1991,” Tony says, “and I don’t think I like it very much now. You definitely don’t.”

Steve’s expression sharpens. His nostrils flare. “What are you saying?” he asks, and his voice is rough. He’s angry. Tony is so, so glad they’re doing this over video. The scent of Steve’s fight pheromone would break him, now. It would send him to tears. It would be so easy to bend to his will.

“We’re making ourselves miserable, aren’t we?”

“Tony, no-”

“Tell me this is working, honestly. Tell me this is working for you and mean it and I’ll come back to New York right now.”

Steve’s jaw is so tight Tony can see the veins against his skin. “You’re too drunk to fly. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I think I’m seeing clearly for the first time in months, actually,” Tony laughs. He feels freed, almost, now that he’s made a decision. He feels like he could sink to the bottom of the sea and sleep. It’s the calmest he’s felt in so long. Since the night he connected Stark Tower to the arc reactor and Pepper had smiled at him over a glass of champagne. How simple his life had been then. How clear. He’d known where he was going, and who he was going with. Everything had been so easy.

“You should take the job with SHIELD,” Tony tells him. He means it, too. “It’ll be good for you to have direction. All these months, and I finally figured you out. You get so restless when you’re bored. You need routine. You’re like a human golden retriever. You’re running out of things to fix in the city, and so you’ve become desperate to fix us. But I can’t…" Tony's voice breaks. He's not proud of it. He pushes on, because he has to. He has to get this out. "I can’t be your North Star, Steve. I can’t be your life raft when I’m drowning. Routine is my anathema. I’m a fucking mess. And I need to stay here and get my company and my life back on track.”

“Tony,” Steve says. His eyes are so, so blue. “What are you saying?”

“You know what I’m saying,” Tony says. For once in their whole miserable relationship, he’s sure it’s true. “This isn’t working, Steve. We did our best, and we couldn’t make it work.”

Tony’s never seen Steve cry before. He’s watched all of his old film reels. He’s been living with him for months now. But he supposes he found Steve Rogers’ breaking point, finally. He should be proud. He’s broken Captain America, where so many others have failed.

“It’s not your fault,” Tony tells him. “You did your best. But statistically, the universe had to be wrong at least once. Makes sense that it was me. Starks defy the laws of the universe. That’s what we do. ‘S who I am. This isn’t your fault, Steve, okay?”

“I love you,” Steve says, and oh, that hurts. That hurts worse than Tony could have possibly imagined it would. “Tony-”

“How can you, Steve? We barely know each other,” Tony points out, and Steve sobs like he’s been stabbed. Tony can feel himself choking up, too, but he’s better at this part than Steve. He’s had years of public scrutiny to practice. He knows how not to cry. “I know that you wanted this soulmate thing to work out. I know you did. But it’s making us miserable, Steve. There are hundreds of people out there. Literally billions. Plenty of people who will love you as much as you deserve-”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Steve tells him. He’s so stubborn. He’s magnificent, even splotchy and soaked in tears. He looks like Cabanel’s _Fallen Angel_ , all resentment and muscle. “Please, just give me another chance-”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tony tells him. He smiles a little, even though it hurts like hell. “You’re perfect, Steve. But I’m a mess, okay? I’m a mess, and all I do is ruin things-”

“I’m not perfect,” Steve says, shaking his head. “I know I’ve hurt you, Tony, I _do_ know you. I know who you are, and I could be good for you. I could be so good for you if you let me. I know I could. Just let me try again-”

“I’m tired, Steve,” Tony says, and Steve exhales like he’s run out of fuel. Just stops, slumps forward. “And I don’t want to be something you fix. I don’t want to be the thing that breaks you, that changes you. You said it, didn’t you? I don’t want you to be less you. You’re perfect. It’s me that’s got you chasing your tail, jumping through hoops, walking on eggshells…that sentence got away from me. Whatever. My point is, aren’t you tired of trying so hard all the time?”

Steve shakes his head, numbly. He doesn’t say anything else. His eyes are so red. He looks broken.

“Look,” Tony tries, “if you didn’t want the job you would have already turned it down. But you didn’t. You left the door open because you want it. So I’m telling you that you can have it. This works out, Steve. You said you’re just meant to cover for Barton. I’m working through SI’s transition. It’ll just be for a little while. A few months at the most. We can still talk. You can call me whenever you want. Think of it like a break. Did they have those in the 40’s? They must have.”

Steve shrugs, a bitter smile coming to his lips. “I wouldn’t know,” he says. “No one wanted me then, either.”

Tony shuts his eyes at the wave of guilt and pain that washes over him. He deserved that. He deserves worse. “That’s definitely not true,” he rasps. He fixes a smile to his face, opens his eyes to see Steve’s intense blue glare. “I’ve seen the photos. You’ve always been adorable.”

“Yeah, adorable,” Steve repeats flatly, and Tony huffs a sad laugh.

“This isn’t your fault,” Tony tells him again. Steve isn’t listening. _He never listens to me. He’s always running away. I’m letting you go, isn’t that what you want?_ Steve’s looking down at his hands. “We’ll take a break. I can talk to a shrink about the anxiety attacks I’ve been mostly avoiding thinking about. Get a bottle of Xanax or something. You should probably talk to a shrink about the PTSD you pretend you don’t have, but your body, whatever. Like I said, this isn’t your fault, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re…you’re amazing, Steve. You’re treacle sweet. You’re unbelievably gorgeous. But I think we can both agree that what we’ve been doing so far isn’t working. Can’t we?”

“Or we could work through our issues together,” Steve says stubbornly, “the way we’re meant to.”

“We can’t even manage a whole meal together,” Tony points out, and Steve closes his eyes and sucks in a sharp breath. “Steve…”

“Is this what you want?” Steve asks him. He opens his eyes, tilts forward towards the camera. His brows are creased as he studies Tony’s face on the screen. “Just this once, be honest with me. Is this really what you want?”

Tony swallows. Steve’s eyes are so, so bright when he cries. The rims of his eyelids are puffy and pink, astonishing on his classically handsome face. He’s unbelievably beautiful, but he was never Tony’s. Not really.

“I want us to stop hurting each other,” Tony says, and he means every word.

Steve closes his eyes. A single tear leaks out, trailing down his face. Tony has the strangest desire to take a photo. He’s going to remember this moment for the rest of his short life. He wonders if it’s going to hurt this much every time.

 _It’s okay_ , Tony thinks, and it feels like the first breath after being held underwater. _I’m not going to waste both of our lives._

“Okay,” Steve says. It’s more breath than word. “Damn.” He reaches up and wipes at his face with his thumb and forefinger, smearing his tears on the top of his sweatpants. His mouth trembles, just the barest amount. He’s breaking Tony’s heart. When he speaks, his voice is rough. Pure Brooklyn brogue. He’s more than Tony could have ever dreamed of. “For what it’s worth, I do know you, Tony. I see you, the real you, and you’re brilliant, and incredible, and…and generous. I’m just real sorry I didn’t do a good job of showing you that.”

“Steve,” Tony whispers, but Steve just shakes his head.

“I’m gonna go,” he says. _You’re always running away from me._ “Remember to drink some water before you go to bed, okay?”

“Steve,” Tony says, and Steve waits, albeit impatiently. Already, his eyes are looking away from the screen. There’s tension in every line of his body. “I’m sorry, too.”

“I know you are,” Steve says, glancing back at him. The smile he offers Tony is genuine, even as it trembles. “I know you tried.” Tony winces. “Promise me one thing?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, quietly.

“Take care of yourself out there,” Steve says, and that’s it; that’s the thing that will bring Tony to his knees. He closes his eyes, makes a fist so tight his nails dig into his palm. “Make sure you eat enough.”

Tony nods, even though that’s two things. Even though he knows he won’t. He can’t trust himself to speak. He feels numb with grief. Nothing’s hurt this bad since Jarvis—the old, human Jarvis—died. He’s two seconds away from bawling like a child.

“Night, Tony.”

“Bye, Steve.”

Steve breathes for a second longer. Two. Tony can’t open his eyes. He doesn’t know if he can handle Steve looking at him. He’s trying so hard to hold himself together. Eventually, the soft hiss of background noise cuts out. He opens his eyes.

Steve’s gone.

Tony tilts his head back onto the lounger and throws an arm over his eyes. And then, with no one to see him but the early moon and a few lone seagulls, he cries himself sick. He cries like he hasn’t cried in years—since Jarvis died, and Tony had nothing but the rest of his lonely life staring at him like the barrel of a rifle: the longest, darkest tunnel, with only death at the end. He cries until he’s sick all over his lovely imported French tiles.

Afterwards, Tony feels scraped clean. Hollow on the inside, like an empty bowl. Sober isn’t the word for it. He doesn’t know if there’s a word for this feeling. He feels like there’s nothing left inside of him. He sits on the edge of the lounger, head between his hands, and tries to ignore the scent of his own vomit. He tries to gather the strength to stand.

_Stark men are made of iron._

He pushes himself up. He scrubs an unsteady hand over his eyes. When he looks up, stars—endless, across the ocean, as far as his weak human eyes can see. He remembers the portal, its endless non-Euclidean forms. The vastness of that chitinous army, black carapaces lit by swathes of glowing cosmic dust.

There’s a war coming, Tony knows. He’s been preparing for it. There’s so much work left to do.

He places a hand over the light of the arc reactor, looks down at the blue gleaming from between his calloused fingers. Tony’s heart has always been weak, in every sense of the word. Soon, the Bond Sickness weaken it further, or the Bond will wither and die. He’s been here before, hasn’t he? He survived long enough to stop an alien invasion and save all of the New York Metropolitan Area from a nuke. Roughly 12 million deaths, give or take. The whole world, if the Avengers lost the battle without his help. He’s revolutionised clean energy, medical technology. He’s on the verge of a breakthrough in material science. Nanotech. True, adaptive, fully-functional nanotech. In a few years, probably, he can make it work.

If he can protect the earth this one last time, he’ll have done enough to have kept his promise to Yinsen, won’t he? He’s so tired, and Steve is so young. He has most of his life ahead of him. Who knows how the serum is affecting his lifespan?

“Just a little further,” he tells it. He taps his fingernails against the crystal pane, that familiar clicking. “Give me just a little longer.”

He’s going to build an army. He’s going to make JARVIS a god. He’s going to put a suit of armour around the world. He’s going to protect his stupid, self-sacrificing soulmate from himself. He’s going to save everyone.

“What do we do, J?”

“We change the world, sir.”

“That’s right,” Tony says. He smiles, grim and ready. “That’s fucking right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp this got so fucked up and depressing. I’m really sorry everybody. Like I said, I thought this was gonna be the “confession! happy ending!” instalment but then seasonal depression was like “heyyyy remember me” and so here we are with…this, I guess. Fuck.
> 
> So. This is obviously not the end. Everyone will kiss and make up, including Tony and Bruce. Especially Tony and Bruce! But I think also this is a good segue into a) how completely fucked up Tony is during IM3, and b) Steve being really bitter while Nat tries to set him up with anyone who has a pulse. I’ve never written IM3 fic before, tbh because I’m a PoC and I found that film offensive for various reasons. (Alas, Iron-Man can often be a problematic fave…especially the old Mandarin comics lol.) But canonically that’s what happens next, so we’re probably looking at this series’ climax culminating with the events of that film. Yay, PTSD Christmas for everyone!
> 
> I did not think this series would get so out of hand. I also did not finish even a single line of BINGO. Sometimes these things happen. Still working on my WIPs, if you’re waiting, so sorry about that. Just trying to muddle through this shite winter. Hope you’re enjoying the angst I guess? 
> 
> Some meta, re: some of the convos I’ve had w/ readers—I think this is the first time Tony really _sees_ Steve in this series. I was trying to show that this whole time Steve is trying really hard to correct his own false assumptions, but Tony is wholly in denial about being Sight Bonded and who Steve is because he doesn’t _want_ Steve to be good. He wants Howard to have been wrong about Steve, because (falsely) deep down he thinks that if Howard was right about Steve being great, then Howard must have been right about him being a disappointment. Tony has an epiphany, in this fic, that Steve is desperately trying to make their relationship work in an almost monomaniac way, and that that dynamic isn’t healthy for him. So I actually think they had a breakthrough here, even if it ended in tears. You will see some of the results of them actually talking TO each other instead of AT each other in the next instalment. But I hope that some of that growth I was trying to portray came across in this fic. Would love to hear thoughts!!! As always, I love discussing this stuff with you all. <3


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